Today’s writer isn’t a politician, preacher, or other public figure, so ordinarily we wouldn’t embarrass or promote him by using his full name — but this one is an exception. His name is Mike Bogle. He’s been a long-time contributor to our Creationist Wisdom series. The most recent occasion was #686: A Mind-Boggling Letter. Excerpts from his latest will be enhanced with our Curmudgeonly commentary and some bold font for emphasis. Here we go!

Leonard Pitts, whose column used to appear regularly in the Daily Globe, once wrote a column titled “God, Science: Opposite Sides.” It was a critique of intelligent design theory. It gave no evidence for evolution and was basically incoherent.

We searched, but couldn’t find the Pitts letter. No matter, Bogle is sufficiently entertaining all by himself. He says:

Pitts compared the worthiness of intelligent design being mentioned in school with the KKK being allowed to present its case in school. I say, how about just mentioning that Darwin himself believed in “creator God” and intelligent design; he just had a different idea about how God it.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! No comment is needed. After that, Bogle tells us:

Pitts’ statement that “is the overwhelming consensus of the mainstream (whatever that means) scientific community that Darwin had it right” is patently false. If Darwin were [alive?] today, he would admit he had it wrong because the fossil evidence he required is still missing. The reason there are few “creationists” in higher education and biological research is that they won’t hire them.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Again, no comment is needed Bogle continues:

The reason no one gives credible evidence for macroevolution in this debate is that there is none. [Hee hee!] I’ve read their books. Scales cannot turn into feathers, and there are no vestigial organs. You actually need your tailbone and your appendix; scientists now know. “Faith is the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1b) actually fits evolution better than belief in intelligent design.

Bogle’s letter has so many staggeringly stunning assertions that we may end up making no comments at all. Let’s read on:

I’ve never met a “believer” who rejects science. They do object to a theory being taught as a fact when even calling evolution a theory is being generous.

Lordy, lordy — usually creationists say evolution is “just a theory,” but now it’s not even a theory. Another excerpt:

Most Christians do not see reason as the enemy of faith, as Pitts suggests, but see reason as the enemy of evolution.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! And now we come to the end:

Question: Why are bristlecone pines only 4,000 years old when science says they can live much longer? Answer: That is about how long it has been since the “flood.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Wikipedia has an article on Dendrochronology. Creationists rarely mention it, because there’s a bristlecone pine that goes back 8,500 years, and some tree ring chronologies go back 11,000 years. Bogle’s information probably comes from the Institute for Creation Research. We wrote about their views in Tree Rings Are Proof of Noah’s Flood.

We always enjoy hearing from Mike Bogle. We hope he keeps writing his letters.

Wow. I’m so happy that the letter writer is in step with our vice presidential candidate Mike Pence . Wikipedia on Mike Pence “Evolution”
When asked if he accepts evolution, Pence answered “I believe with all my heart that God created the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that’s in them. How he did that I’ll ask him about some day.”[89][91] In a 2002 statement on the floor of the House (reported in the Congressional Record), Pence told his colleagues “… I also believe that someday scientists will come to see that only the theory of intelligent design provides even a remotely rational explanation for the known universe.”
And yes, he thinks global warming is a scientific hoax as well.
We’re talking a quality candidate here.

Most Christians do not see reason as the enemy of faith, as Pitts suggests, but see reason as the enemy of evolution.

I suspect many, perhaps most, Christians see reason as the enemy of people like Mike Bogle. For example, the attitude of Methodists toward ID evangelists when they dare to visit SMU is most amusing, and the attempt by the DI to get a table at a Methodist convention recently was hilarious. I believe the Catholic church doctrine is to accept evolution, and other more mainstream protestant churches are certainly not opposed to it.

Funny how the more fundamentalist the religious person is, the more convinced he or she is that they represent all others of their faith.

@Douglas E
I have sympathy with that essay, but I differ on making the parallel between the KKK and evolution denial. For one thing, it is apt to alienate people, rather than convince them. But also, the exoneration of the KKK offers an alternative history. They aren’t just saying that the KKK was not the organization that standard history says. Unlike evolution denial, which does not attempt to account for what happens so that vertebrates have vertebrate-type eyes, rather than insect-type eyes, to take one undoubted observation that evolution easily explains.

The reason no one gives credible evidence for macroevolution in this debate is that there is none. [Hee hee!] I’ve read their books. Scales cannot turn into feathers, and there are no vestigial organs. You actually need your tailbone and your appendix; scientists now know. “Faith is the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1b) actually fits evolution better than belief in intelligent design.

(1) Scales don’t “turn into feathers” in living animals, but the evidence that feathers derived from scales is overwhelming.

(2) The coccyx can have a function and still be vestigial. We don’t have tails, of course, but we still have a coccyx because that bone is useful in anchoring certain muscles. If it were entirely useless it would likely be gone completely.

As for faith being the evidence of things not seen, creationists should know. Scientists prefer to believe what they can see (or otherwise detect); creationists see what they prefer to believe.

If Darwin were [alive?] today, he would admit he had it wrong because the fossil evidence he required is still missing.

Horse feathers! When Darwin wrote in 1859, the first major Neanderthal find was only three years old! The rest of the major fossils were not discovered until decades later, or many decades later for some of them.

Of course Darwin lamented the lack of fossils, but in good scientific fashion he presented his theory with the provision that fossils would have to be found to validate it.

Well, 150 years later we have the fossils, and DNA evidence besides. But the creationists can’t admit that — denial, for them, is a standard method for dealing with unpleasant facts. If not denial then its misrepresentation or flat-out lying. We’ve grown used to all of that.

Summary: we have the fossils, and DNA also, but the creationists continue lyin’ and denyin’ as that’s all they have left.

How can one comment on a series of assertions every single one of which is palpably, flagrantly false? The most cursory check will immediately demolish any and all of them. Con-men are usually aware of a need to be plausible. If he habitually writes letters like that one, Bogle must be aware that their effect is like Matilda’s, that “it made folk gasp and stretch their eyes”. But no. He simply doesn’t care.

It passes belief that Bogle can lie like this and not know, somewhere in the muddled hugger-mugger of what passes for his consciousness, that he is lying. If he does this sort of thing in public before a general audience, he cannot have failed to have encountered rebuttal. He says that he has “read their books”, almost certainly another lie, but all the same he cannot be unaware of at least some of the mountains of evidence. He even alludes to it with his “Scales cannot turn into feathers…”. Surely even Bogle can’t be so completely swaddled in fantasy that he is unaware that this is simply denying reality? But no. It would appear that he is so swaddled.

So it seems that Bogle is not a con-man, alas. It would be easy to deal with him if he were. The sad truth is that he is far worse. And far more dangerous. This is a fanatic for whom fact is irrelevant. History is full of them, and woe invariably follows in their path. Sometimes it is only their own; but let them anywhere near public policy and it is always woe to others as well. And by writing letters to the paper, Bogle has gone public.

So one must comment. One must oppose. It’s a pity that the forum Bogle chooses does not allow rebuttal, so it must be done elsewhere. Here, for instance.

Wrong. If retanoic acid is injected into the legs of chick embryos, what would have been scales develop instead as feathers. An internet search for “retanoic acid scales” finds plenty of scholarly articles about this.

there are no vestigial organs

Wrong. Mr Bogle should ogle the Wikipedia article on the palmaris longus muscle. Not only do something like 15% of people lack one altogether, and a few more have only one, but it can be removed and used to repair other tendons, with no loss of function and without rejection. Interestingly, it is fully functional in one relevant group of animals, wait for it: monkeys!